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June 2014

Lakewood Library is holding a Fandom Contest. You have the opportunity to enter stories, poetry, art, cosplay, or video that represents your fandom. What is a fandom? Anything you are obsessed with right now (think things like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Dr. Who, My Little Pony, and more). Entries will be judged on creativity, originality, actual relation to the original subject, craftsmanship, and quality. Entries will be posted throughout the Lakewood Library. The judging of this event will be August 4th, and the winner will receive a $50 Visa gift card! Who knows, maybe you could get more books or fandom merch with that sweet prize!

To Submit: bring entry to any of the desks at the Lakewood Library between July 20th-July 31.

If you enjoy poetry, you might try checking out Tell The World: Teen Poems from WritersCorps. This book shares the voices of teens who show the world how poetry can reflect who we are, where we are from, how we love, and why we hope.

Each month we are featuring an awesome member of our Teen Advisory Board (TAB). You might be wondering, "What is TAB and how can I become one of these AMAZING people?!?!?" TAB is a group of teens who meet monthly to discuss how the library can best serve teens, to plan events, and most importantly hang out and have a good time. Talk with the Teen Librarian at your location to get involved.

Jessica, Columbine TAB

In three words...who are you?

Reader, Student, Bibliophile

What's awesome about the town you live in?

It's got nice views...nice people.

What sucks about it?

The weather. I hate the cold and snow...so I am probably living in entirely the wrong place.

What's the weirdest thing you can think of to say right now...now?

And then she said something in a complicated sounding language that the interviewer did not understand!

What are you obsessed with and why?

Tolkien, as my previous reply states. I love everything he has written, and I know quite a few of his languages which is what I just spoke.

Do you have anything to say about the library?

I think there should be a section of dvds just for the teens, so we don't have to sift through the child and adult stuff to find what we want.

A few months ago in my English class, we were discussing how individual cultures and societies change history based on their views and social structures. It made me think, what history has been "hidden" from people because of a cultures views? In addition to this thought process, I've always had a fascination with the relatively unknown facets of history (mainly women since they are so underrepresented in history). And thus, when my friend told me about the Night Witches I went and did some more research.

Now, these ladies weren’t muttering over cauldrons and turning princes into frogs. They were a group of Soviet bombers during WWII. Already a remarkable aviatrix, Marina Raskova was called upon in 1941 to organize a regiment of female pilots to run night harassment bombing missions. This regiment became the 588th regiment.

The women of the 588th regiment were a motley assortment that flew thousands of missions. They were assigned Polikarpov Po-2 wooden bi-planes that were primarily used for training. These planes could only carry two bombs and were extremely obsolete. Basically, they got the terrible planes and missions.

Many of their targets were places such as supply depots, camps, or rear bases. They never targeted civilians or cities. So, during harassment missions the Night Witches would turn off their engines and glide over the target. After they released their bombs, they would climb out onto the wings and restart the engines. The only warning the enemy had of their approach was the sound of the wind bracing wires vibrating in the wind. And by that point, it was too late. The bombs had already been dropped.

To avoid enemy airships the Night Witches flew low to the ground and developed team tactics. The planes’ outdated technology actually helped the Witches remain invisible to radar and heat seeking detection. The canvas of the Po-2 was unreflective thus radar didn’t work and the small engines gave off very little heat causing heat seeking to be useless. But the Night Witches were not undetetcable.

Their planes could be tracked and located with search lights. These search lights and guns surrounding the search lights caused many problems for the women. As such, they developed a strategy for the search lights. Usually, pilots flew in pairs and search lights came in pairs. Since the Po-2s had a low top speed, they were often gunned down when within the range of the search lights. The Night Witches ended up flying in threes. Two of the Witches would fly into the beams of the search lights and distract the operators while the third would fly between the search lights and drop her bombs. She would then switch with one of the other pilots and the other pilot proceeded to drop her bombs. It continued like this until all three had dropped their bombs.

These women were such remarkable pilots that German pilots would be awarded an Iron Cross for bringing down one of the Night Witches’ planes.